Yes, I am speaking to you in that brute speech you favour. It suits you, said Pernicia. It suits you so much better than any human tongue. It suits who you have become, country maid, simpleton, beast-girl. Who you are. Because is not what you have become what you are best suited for? Have you not spent many hours wondering why you are as you are, why it fits you so well, these last three months, and why the last three months did not? For that alone it was worth waiting till your final birthday, thinking of you wondering. It took me but a moment, when I realised the truth, why you had remained hidden from me for so long, when I looked for you so eagerly. I had been looking for a princess.
Rosie shook her head numbly. It was true what Pernicia said, that Rosie was not a princess, but she knew that already. She knew that Pernicia said it to hurt her, but it did not hurt her; and she wondered if the only reason Pernicia chose to speak to her in this way—in this clumsy, cacaphonic beast-speech—was to humiliate her. Pernicia would not have thought to ask the animals where to find the princess, and they would not have told her had she asked; and as she had not thought to ask them, she had neither thought to punish them for their refusal. Pernicia’s words did not hurt Rosie, but fear of what she might do—was planning to do—to Peony hurt her very much.
She could no longer see Narl, nor the animals, nor the castle; she was alone in the purple-grey murk with Pernicia, and Peony’s life lay between them.
Come to me, said Pernicia, and her words yelped and roared and hissed and sang and clicked and tapped. Come to me. You want to save your friend; then come and try. You will not succeed; but I have had more bother over you than you are worth and perhaps watching you fail will be some recompense for my trouble. She bent swiftly, with little eddies of fog scuttling out of her way as she moved, and the long folds of the black-and-purple-and-cerise robe she wore rearranged themselves, and Rosie noticed there were long rents in them, as if, perhaps, they had been caught and torn by thorns. She laid Peony at her feet.
Peony sprawled, limp as a child’s toy or a sleeping baby. Her hair was coming free of the crown of inheritance the king had placed on her head, and tumbling round her, and the superabundance of her princess’ ball-gown skirts made her look tiny among them. They seemed to froth over the edge of something into nothing, although Rosie could see neither the something nor the nothing, wrapped as both were in the muddy haze.
She remembered that she had been only a few steps from the lip of the moat when Pernicia had appeared, standing, apparently, on the naked air over the moat, emerging from the unbroken wall of the castle. Was the moat still there? Was the castle still there? But then none of this landscape existed as landscape should; they had come here from leaping into the sky. But if Pernicia had dissolved all of it into this thick, grimy fog, what was she, Rosie, standing on? And if the castle was no longer there, what was the rope that still held her pulling against?
Rosie shook her head; the fog in her mouth tasted foul. She tried to free herself from the rope, but it would not let her go. You don’t exist, she thought. Go away. I have to try to reach Peony.
But it would not let her go. She stepped forward, and it writhed beneath her stepping foot. A loop felt its way round her like an arm round her shoulders. She could feel it round her ankles, leaving her just enough space to take small steps. It was strangely squashy to walk on, like a bog before you begin to sink; and she remembered the old bog-charm Aunt had wound round her long ago, and how much she had resented it. That had been before she was a princess, when she had understood her world, and been happy in it.
The rope still grasped her hands, but now it seemed to lead her on, as Rosie might have led a skittish horse. It held her steadily, gravely, confidently. She took another step forward, and another—if the moat was still there, she was now over it—but walking was more difficult now, and her feet seemed to grope from one swaying, spongy, irregularly placed loop of rope to the next, sliding anxiously along, fearing that the in-between would not hold her securely enough, that her foot would slip over the edge into nowhere. She was panting for breath, and now she gripped the rope as strongly as it gripped her, leaning against it, feeling for its narrow yielding roundness against her feet, pressing its coils against her sides.
But she was still sinking, or perhaps she had not climbed high enough; when she neared Pernicia and Peony, her face was nearly level with Peony’s as she lay at Pernicia’s feet. Rosie reached out with her rope-tangled hands to touch Peony’s face, and heard Pernicia shout an AHH! that made whatever Rosie was standing on vibrate like a young tree in a strong wind; and then she stooped.
Pernicia’s stooping seemed to take a very long time, as if she were a merrel plummeting down upon its prey from half a league overhead, and Rosie watched those long-fingered hands reaching to seize her as she scrabbled Peony toward her—Peony slid as if she were still lying on the polished wooden floor of Woodwold’s Great Hall—and together Rosie and Peony fell backward into the pliant rope with Peony half on Rosie’s lap and half in her still-pinioned arms. With some part of her mind Rosie registered that Pernicia’s hands were covered with scratches, as if she had recently had to fight her way out of a briar. But she felt one of those hands brush her shoulder, and she cried out, for that fleeting touch felt like the slash of a knife, and she glanced toward it, expecting to see blood soaking through her sleeve; and then there was a rustle and a rush and a whispery, tickly blur, and Pernicia screamed, a hoarse, horrible scream, in rage and surprise, and threw herself backward; and there was a small terrier clamped to the hand that had just touched Rosie, and two mice dangling from her cheek and chin.
And then Rosie was falling, falling, clutching Peony as best she could, falling against the soft rope, as soft against her face as if she lay against Narl’s hair, and then she staggered, for the coils had given way to two human arms, and her feet had struck the ground. She twisted one ankle painfully, but the arms held her safe, her and Peony. Together they laid Peony gently on the ground, Rosie straightening up just in time not to be knocked onto her friend’s body by a horse’s foreleg banging into her side. The fog had thinned, now racing by her in streaks and tatters on the capricious gusts of wind that also clawed through her hair, and made the little huddle of animals and people all lurch against each other; but she could see very little, only more racing fog. And now here was Narl, offering to throw her up onto the back of the horse: Fast.
“The castle’s gone,” Narl said, raising his voice to be heard over the low evil howl of the wind. “Your rope pulled the top off, and this wind is taking the rest. I’m not sure what happens now, but it won’t be friendly. She’ll pull this wind to her soon and . . . You must get away from here. If anyone can save you, Fast can,” he said, but his words were almost blown away before she could hear them. He said something else: about the animals holding the way. “Go on.”
“She wants both of us,” shouted Rosie, leaning against Fast and grasping his mane against the increasing buffeting. . . . The wind was full of voices now, yammering and bellowing and clattering: Were they all Pernicia’s voice?
Narl knelt and grasped her ankle and heaved, flinging her up Fast’s side and down across his back with a jerk that hurt her hip joint. “Can’t you hear them on the wind? It’s you they’re after—she’s after. She only took Peony as a hostage—because she missed you. They’ll follow you, and leave us, and I can just about make them think we aren’t here anyway. We all have to leave this place—it’s breaking up round us. Stay on the human road! Remember! Now go. Go!”
She had just enough time to wind both hands in Fast’s mane; as she laid herself as best she could along his back she felt the wild strength of him bound into his full speed within a few strides, the wind trying to peel her off his back like a knife pares an apple. All round them she heard the evil magic in Pernicia’s thwarted fury rising and rising to a pitch that might yet shatter the world.
Fast can save me? From what? For what?
For a little while she was wholly absorb
ed in the experience of Fast’s running: the power, the terrifying power of it, the surge of the hindquarters, the stretch of the stride, the bunching together in preparation for the next surge, all compacted into a single motion and translated into the torrent of his speed. She had seen him run many times, for after her successful interference on the subject of his manners, she had been invited to watch him train; and, upon its being very obvious to the Master of the Horse how pleased he was to see her, she was also invited, as a kind of good-luck charm, to the occasional match-race that some other owners of some other horses misguidedly begged Lord Prendergast for. There was a flat clear stretch along the riverbank of about a league and a half that was used as a racecourse, for Lord Pren would not send Fast away to race elsewhere; he said he had no doubts about Fast’s speed. And Fast was so clearly faster than any other horse he had ever run against that no other owner dared cry foul.
Rosie remembered standing beside Fast just before one of these contests—she wasn’t bothering to try to talk to him; his mind was full of spinning glittery fragments of running, wanting to run, waiting to run, being nothing but running with a bay coat stretched over it—and looking up into his rider’s face, and seeing a curious expression of determination settle upon it as he picked up the reins: the look of a man who is about to jump over a precipice.
She hadn’t understood it at the time. She understood it now.
But someone—many someones—were running with them, even as Fast outstripped them. Dimly she could see sleek bodies beside them: other horses, dogs, wolves, foxes, wildcats, deer; Fast ran past all of these. She caught glimpses of slower animals: cows and sheep, bears and badgers, and of smaller animals, otters and martens and rabbits and hedgehogs and cats; and there were tiny streaks of motion she thought were mice and voles and squirrels. Overhead she could just make out the shapes of birds flying among the rags of cloud, and darting shapes that might be bats.
She thought they were all running and flying in the same direction, Fast driving among them like a ship through the sea, although she could be sure of very little, for the wind of Fast’s speed whipped tears from her eyes. But as they ran she realised that those that ran with them were in fact opening and holding a way for them, and that beyond the animals that were her friends were other creatures that were not her friends, who would stop her if they could.
Rosie could see, now that she had guessed what to look for, the occasional wicked face, rough and square or delicate and oval, tall or short, human or half human or goblin or imp, peering at her through the ranks of her friends, reaching out hands or claws or thick twisting or biting magics, to grasp her as she ran by; but none of them could reach her.
Stay on the human road, Narl had said. They were running through desert places, like the land round the castle; and then they ran through trees, sometimes widely scattered, sometimes in groves; but always there was a clear way for Fast to go, clear and nearly straight, and his hoofs seemed barely to graze the ground before he hurtled forward in his next tremendous stride. Stay on the human road. She could not tell if they were on a road or not, only that the animals had chosen the way.
The fog cleared slowly and the light grew brighter, and the landscape grew slowly less flat. There was a piece of hill line she could see through Fast’s streaming mane that looked familiar, and then they shot past a curious little basin of valley that teased at her memory till she remembered, and, remembering, understood: They had passed the northern boundary of the Gig from the wasteland where no one went. They were now running over the ground where King Harald had fought the fire-wyrms; the valley they had just passed was called the Dragon’s Bowl, caused by the fire-wyrms melting the landscape in rage when they could not defeat the king. She had not been here since she was small; Aunt used to collect bdeth near here, although in recent years she had stopped using it. “The Dragon’s Bowl is too far to walk on these old bones,” she said, when Rosie had once asked her; it had been a sennight’s journey for the three of them, during the autumn expedition to collect all the wild things Aunt and Katriona would spend the winter making up into charms or storing away for the next year.
Fast was still running as swiftly as the footing would allow him, but she could feel his lungs beginning to labour, and his neck and shoulders were wet with sweat. She did not know how long they had been running, but she was tired from hanging on, smooth as a good horse’s flat-out gallop was to sit over, and neither of them had had anything to eat in much too long. The way they were going was narrowing, too, and she could see more and more of those malign faces looking at her. Her friends were no longer running with them, but holding their line, struggling to hold their line, to hold Pernicia’s creatures back.
The first deviling that broke through Fast dodged round, scarcely breaking stride; but the second one was bigger, and the third was not alone, but stood against her with six friends. Fast gathered himself together and leaped over them; Rosie shot up his neck when they landed, but she stayed on. Where are we? she thought. Fast—even Fast—cannot run the whole length of the Gig. But then where are we going? Has Pernicia’s host overrun the Gig? What is happening in Foggy Bottom, at Woodwold?
But Fast was running the length of the Gig. They were on a road she knew, the road from Mistweir to Waybreak.
The blood vessels stood out now on Fast’s wet hide, and she could see the huge red hollows of his nostrils, and hear the saw of his breathing. She tried to call to him, Fast, Fast, slow down, slow down, do not kill yourself; but he did not answer her, not even with a flick of his laid-back ears. She thought, he is right, if they catch me it is all up for all of us; but what does he think I can do even if I get back to Woodwold—if Woodwold is where we are going. She took Peony because she knew if I lived I had to follow; but now . . .
What is it I’m supposed to do?
Ahead of them the line broke, and a scatter of deer, red and roe and fallow, scrambled dazedly across their path and a mob spread out before them. Fast was now running past Moonshadow; Rosie could see fields and rooftops, but she saw no human beings, and no animals but the ones that lined her way.
Fast faltered and then deliberately slowed, pulling himself together as if showing off for a mare, prancing, tail and crest high, toward the glowering creatures that blocked their way. Rosie half thought, half made herself believe that these creatures trod uneasily on the human road, that the roughness of their quick steps was not only due to their eagerness to seize her and pull Fast down.
One of the enemy made a feint toward her and Fast, and a little group of deer and sheep blocked it; Rosie saw a bear rise up behind them, and another of the invaders was snatched and thrown over the heads of his companions. Fast swerved to one side, and back, leaped over some heaving tangle on the ground, and Rosie, struggling to maintain her seat, did not notice in time—someone, or something, had her leg, and was about to drag her to the ground.
Fast sat back on his haunches and swung round, but the goblin swung, too; Rosie beat ineffectually at its face, but it only sank its fingers more firmly into her flesh. If only she had some weapon—where the cloth of her trouser leg was strained by the goblin’s grasp, the gargoyle spindle end drove painfully into her thigh. She worked her hand into her pocket and pulled it out, cracked it sharply across her attacker’s face, and felt the goblin’s hold loosen. Fast gave it an awkward punch with a hind foot, bending round and aiming as if he were planning to scratch his own shoulder, and it fell to the ground. Fast straightened out with a jerk that almost finished unseating Rosie and shot off again, through the remains of the throng, and pressed on. Rosie didn’t quite have the chance to stuff the spindle end back into her pocket, and tucked it into her waistcoat instead; old friend that it was, she spared a thought for the sound of that crack, and hoped it had been only the goblin’s skull.
Fast’s hoofs no longer grazed the earth with every stride, but struck it hard and jarringly; but he was still running, and they appeared to have outrun Pernicia’s army—as well as their o
wn friends. The little respite they had had outside Moonshadow had seemed to give him a second wind, and while he no longer ran lightly, he ran resolutely. Between her own and Fast’s breathing and the wind in her ears Rosie could hear nothing else; it was a very silent and empty landscape they were running through, thundering through the square at Treelight and later across Smoke River’s big common. Still she saw no people nor any animals; they saw no one, not even a butterfly.
And there was the briar hedge, climbing up over Woodwold’s outer wall and spilling down the outside. They were thundering down upon it, on the main road from Smoke River, a wide and clear way: clear enough that Rosie could see the hedge from far away, see it grow ever closer and closer. . . .
They had not outrun all of Pernicia’s army. Some of it was waiting for them.
Those that stood against them stood quietly, watchfully: expectantly. They had known that what they waited for had to come to them at last. They had had no need to cry warning—not of one horse near foundering, and one weaponless rider—they had no need to do anything. What they waited for raced toward them, and would fall at their feet without their having to lift knife or stick or bare claw or fang. They stood with their backs against the briar hedge, many of them so knotted and twisted themselves that they were not immediately evident, especially not to eyes as weary as Rosie’s and Fast’s. But as Rosie’s eyes adjusted she saw how many of them there were: several ranks of them standing out from the wall. Silently. Patiently. Waiting.
She could feel Fast’s uncertainty and alarm but she had no suggestions for him. He slowed nearly to a canter, looking right and left, as she was looking; but while those that waited for them were most thickly grouped just in front of Woodwold’s gates, half invisible among the rose stems but marked by the road, where the road turned toward Foggy Bottom the way was blocked by tall armoured creatures, clanking as they moved, as they turned their heads to look at her. Rosie could not see if they wore their armour like humans, or if it grew from their flesh.